56	HENRY   GEORGE
Four," dishonestly acquiring land titles., subsidies, and fran-
chises through corruption of politicians and law courts.10 But
New York also had its privileged few who, through flagrant
bribing of the conscienceless State Senator William Marcy
("Boss")Tweed and his famous ring, contrived at criminally
low cost to get title to the highly valuable waterfront of Man-
hattan Island as well as to franchises and public utilities and
rights-of-way.*
In California was the ubiquitous railroad with far-reaching
powers that seemed to take toll of every enterprise in the state.
But in the East was a chain of railroads extracting subsidies
from a much greater public, making appallingly heavy levies
on industry, and through the knaveiy of their chief manipulators
(Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, and their cohorts) corrupting
the courts and city and state governments.11
East and West, George thought, the unscrupulous few were
able to prey upon the weak many—the few becoming richer;
the many, more impoverished. And side by side with wealth
stalked want. Human beings seemed to be starving in the midst
of plenty. Certainly no beneficent Creator could have willed it
so! There must be some natural law that was being broken, else
why this unequal distribution?
Which should he do: attack tlie political dishonesty or seek
out the cause of privilege?
It seemed hopeless that any one man could make an impres-
sion in the fight against these monster wrongs—let alone a man
who had just failed to vanquish a comparatively small monop-
oly. And why should he, Henry George, who wanted to live
quietly and provide a life of ease for those he loved, who wanted
to study and travel and read history and poetry and to write
a novel—why should he even attempt this apparently unequal
struggle?
Not yet thirty, small, slender, shabbily dressed, the type of
man who would pass unnoticed in a crowd, he had roamed the
great metropolis, through its public squares and past its man-
sions and its tenements, seeking out the answer to the gnawing
question. The shocking contrast between immense wealth and
debasing poverty allowed him no peace. And putting aside the
dream he once had cherished of acquiring wealth for himself,
* Henry George, Jr., The Menace of Privilege (New York: Macmillan, 1905);
Gustavus Myers, History of the Great American Fortunes (New York: Modern
Library, 1938).